


In Space, Your Picture's All I Look At

by readbetweenthelions



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Adjustment Disorder, Break Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 15:50:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readbetweenthelions/pseuds/readbetweenthelions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hikaru breaks up with Pavel and Pavel has a hard time getting over it. The picture of Hikaru he keeps does not help the situation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Space, Your Picture's All I Look At

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jessicamiriamdrew](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessicamiriamdrew/gifts), [Daiya_Darko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daiya_Darko/gifts).



Pavel can’t bring himself to get rid of the picture. He can’t even put it away, in a drawer or a suitcase somewhere, or throw it out an airlock or into the engines, or any of the things he _should_ do with it. 

It’s a simple thing, just a black and white photo in a simple frame, but it feels attached to Pavel’s soul with superglue. It’s of Hikaru Sulu, laying on their bed in the hotel in Las Vegas, where they went for shore leave last time. Hikaru wore a suit - well, they had both worn suits, but Pavel was not in the picture - though his jacket was cast aside and his bow tie and the buttons of his wrinkled shirt undone. He’s not even looking at the camera, not even looking at Pavel who was taking his picture, but half-smiling. Pavel doesn’t remember now what exactly he was looking at, but now it feels like an omen, a sign of things to come. 

Pavel remembers another night, on board the Enterprise this time, and in Chekov’s quarters. 

Pavel had been waiting for Hikaru, barely clothed, ready to surprise him. But Hikaru hadn’t wanted to be surprised. Something left his eyes when he saw Pavel lying in wait for him on the bed that night. 

“Let’s talk,” he’d said. _We talk all the time,_ Pavel wanted to say, _all day long we do nothing but talk. We talk before sex, after sex, on the job, in the rec center, all we do is talk. What is there to talk about?_ But he didn’t say anything. 

Thinking back on it, Pavel wishes he could remember what Hikaru had said exactly. In Pavel’s ears most of the conversation sounds like the shattering of glass and the steady rushing thump of blood pounding in his ears and against the lump in his throat. Pavel remembers a few things, like the phrase, “I don’t want to do this anymore,” and Hikaru looking at anything but Pavel and especially him looking at the picture of himself on Pavel’s nightstand. When Hikaru left, he left Pavel sitting on the edge of his own bed, mostly naked, holding back tears, and desperately wanting to throw the picture down the hallway after Hikaru, hard enough to send him to medbay and to force him to tell McCoy what happened. 

The next morning Pavel is told that he won’t be working with Hikaru anymore, that he ordered a shift transfer. Pavel looks at his new helmsman, and nods at his captain. 

Pavel doesn’t see Hikaru for weeks after that. Except he does - in that picture on the nightstand. 

“The things you told me were lies,” Pavel says to the photograph. “You said you loved me and you wanted to be with me always and you lied.” 

_People change,_ Pavel had to keep reminding himself. _Everyone changes, even Hikaru, even you Pavel. Perhaps you just changed too slowly and couldn’t keep up with him._

“You alright, kid?” Doctor McCoy asks him one day, stopping him as he passes in the corridor to the crew quarters. “You’re not lookin’ so good.” 

“I am fine, sir,” Pavel answers. He is not fine. He hasn’t been sleeping, not much anyway. 

“Nuh-uh, kid, you’re coming to sick bay,” McCoy says, and grabs his arm. Pavel protests, making up an excuse about meeting a friend, but the doctor ignores him. 

McCoy sets him roughly on one of the beds, and the monitor shines to life. McCoy pokes and prods a little, and runs scanners over him. Pavel wants to sleep, but knows he will not. 

“Well, you’re mostly alright,” McCoy says finally, “Just a little tired. Get some sleep, will ya, Ensign? Can’t have ya fallin’ asleep at the controls. Ship would never get anywhere.” 

McCoy gives him a pat on the back and sends him off to his quarters. Bizarrely, Pavel wishes he hadn’t. He could have asked McCoy for a sedative, or even just to sleep somewhere that didn’t remind him of Hikaru. 

It’s the picture, Pavel knows it. The night before last, he sat with it in his lap, and it made him cry. They were happy, just a short time ago, but it was over now. He wiped tears off the glass covering the picture and replaced it. Pavel attempted to sleep with his back to the picture but had not been able to. He couldn’t sleep facing it either. 

Pavel is on the bridge a few shifts later, staring at the stars as they whiz by. When he first got on this ship, they were all he looked at - thousands of stars, millions, each with planets and maybe life forms, all of them out there to explore. Now, Pavel struggles not to look at the blackness in between. 

Pavel realizes the captain is talking to him. “Chekov? Mr. Chekov,” he’s saying. He sounds a little impatient, as if he’s been talking for a while without Pavel hearing him. 

“Yes, Captain?” Pavel asks. 

“Set a course for Star Base 17,” Kirk says. “Are you doing alright, Chekov? Maybe you need to see Doctor McCoy.” 

“I already saw Doctor McCoy, sir,” Pavel answers. “I am perfectly alright, sir.” 

Kirk narrows his eyes, but sits back in the chair. He calls orders to the rest of the bridge as Chekov sets coordinates. 

Pavel sees Hikaru in the rec room that day after his shift, and it feels like he’s being ripped apart. Hikaru only looks at him for a second, then looks away, and Pavel does too. Pavel cannot deal with this, he simply cannot. He ought to have trashed that picture weeks ago, he ought never have taken it in the first place - 

Pavel retreats from the room, keeping panic barely at bay. Nyota sees everything. She follows him into the corridor, and walks with him until they reach an empty room. 

“Pavel?” Nyota asks. “Are you... okay?” 

Like a child, like the child he suddenly feels like, Pavel’s lower lip wobbles. “No,” he says. Tears flow hot and angry and sad from his eyes, dripping from his eyelashes and running down his cheeks and alongside his nose. “I am _not_ fine. And I feel like a stupid child. It has been months since Hikaru left me and I am still... I am still _this._ ” 

Nyota’s eyebrows knit, and she takes him by the shoulders. “It’s alright, Pavel, it’s okay,” she says. “It can be hard, and you loved him a lot, and it takes a lot to get over that.” 

“It does not feel like it,” Pavel hiccups. She pulls him into a hug, and he leans down to rest his face at her collarbone. 

“Shh,” she whispers. She strokes his hair, running her palm over his curls. Hikaru used to knot his fingers in them, scratch a little at his scalp, especially when they were having sex. Now the thought makes him shiver, and he is glad that Nyota is not using her nails. “You’ll be fine.” 

It’s not fine, and it doesn’t feel like it will ever be fine, but maybe if he lets Nyota say it enough he can get a little closer. 

“Take the picture out of my room, Nyota?” Pavel asks. “I don’t think it is good for me to see it anymore. I have not been able to get rid of it.” 

“I will,” she replies, and Pavel sniffles against her skin.


End file.
